Tech Toys for Children: Good or Bad?

Digital book readers, handheld learning games, MP3 players – those cute little gadgets always beckon my three savvy boys as we pass the kids’ electronics aisle in our neighborhood Target. I wonder how long it will be before I break down and buy one, or three, for them.

Even though I know that just about every kid has got some kind of game system, the real reason why I haven’t even bought a Leapster for my own boys is because it is just one more thing to negotiate with them. I already have to regulate their TV and computer time, often shutting off both devices amidst tears and threats.

There’s the Leapster, which is an educational game system, and the VTech MobiGo, which looks pretty similar. Fisher Price, maker of such classic toys as the brightly colored stacking rings and the Little People Animal Farm, now offers the iXL Learning System, which plays games, reads books and has an MP3 player, picture viewer, digital art book and notepad all in one.

And those are just the tech toys geared toward 3 to 8-year-olds.

Sometimes I think, though, is it bad to not expose my children to the latest technological gizmo? Will their school friends think it’s weird that they didn’t grow up playing so much as a Toy Story or Finding Nemo learning game?

I also wonder if playing these seemingly harmless learning toys will make young kids want other game systems once they’ve outgrown the educational games. The regular game consoles, like Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, have come a long way since the ultra low-tech game systems of my day. When I ask the students in my third grade class what they did over the weekend, the majority of hands shoot up when I mention any of these game systems.

Gone are the days of old-fashioned creativity and learning how to make rocket ships out of cardboard boxes on a lazy afternoon. Now we need our children to be quiet in church, while we’re in line at the DMV or just to get dinner ready, and I know that today’s tech toys come in handy.

If kids didn’t play video games every day, what could they accomplish in their spare time? According to an Argus article about Fremont teenager Nathan Yeung, who makes instruments out of scrap wood and cookie tins, Yeung says he likes to build things, “probably because my parents never bought me a game console.”

Or take 12-year-old Roberto Granados from Hayward, whose classical and flamenco guitar playing has caught the attention of Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres and the California Symphony. Granados has been able to pursue guitar playing, among other passions and interests, at such a young agebecause he is home-schooled without a TV in his house.

My husband, who happens to be a talented guitar player but rarely finds time to sit down to with our little trio of budding musicians, just sighed when he read that article. If only he could provide our boys with that kind of devoted, focused and distraction-free lifestyle in which they could really do something meaningful.

Although I can’t stand it when I see preschoolers furiously pushing the buttons of their little handheld gaming systems, I know everything in moderation seems to work. I’m sure one day soon I will cave in and buy some tech toys. It could be for a good purpose, too, like keeping my little ones quiet while my older boy practices his guitar with his dad to become the next Antonio Carlos Jobim.